Streaks in the Sky

For the first time in a long time I tried my hand at capturing some lightning.  I've tried very unsuccessfully in the past to get a lightning shot that I could be proud of but tonight was another story.

We had yet another not so insignificant storm pass through the area tonight.  At first I tried shooting through one of the west windows in our sunroom but by the time I got my camera set up most of the lightning had moved to the other side of the house.  I moved my gear to an east facing dining room window but the screen and trees were causing other troubles.  I was about to put everything away when I decided to move into the garage (also east facing).

At first I wasn't having much luck.  I had been trying to limit my scope to one of the houses across the street (and the sky above it obviously) since I had been seeing a fair amount of activity in that general direction.  After several unsuccessful attempts I changed my approach and zoomed back out to 18mm and widened my field to nearly the entire cul-de-sac.  Immediately after repositioning and opening the shutter I was presented with a perfect flash that I knew was right across the top third of my frame.  I left the shutter open for a few more seconds before closing it.  When the review came up I took one look at it and said to myself "this is the shot I've been waiting for," packed up my gear, and headed inside satisfied that I FINALLY got the lightning shot I've wanted since I got my D40.

For anyone interested in the technical information about this shot, this was taken at f/8 for 23. seconds.

Eclipse Photos

Wow! First off, I didn't realize that it has been since the end of September that I posted anything here. So much for keeping this updated!

As many people know, there was a full lunar eclipse last night. For some reason I decided to brave the cold to watch it. I set up the tripod and managed to snap off several great shots of various stages of the eclipse. What really amazed me though was how quickly the photos were hit on flickr after I posted them!

In all of the time I have been posting images to flickr I have never seen a response like this. Up until last night my most viewed photo was a shot I titled 'Round and 'Round We Go that I uploaded back in August. That shot had 67 views as of last night. Four of the eclipse shots approached or exceeded that number in less than 24 hours!

The four eclipse shots that gave my view counts such a great boost are included here for your viewing pleasure. Each photo is linked to the flickr page if you'd like to see a higher resolution version or comment on any of them.

Blood Moon (46 views)


Take a Bite out of the Moon (48 views)


Flared Moon (49 views)


Eclipse in HDR (76 views)

And The Winner Is...

I entered four photos into the novice division of the September 2007 Photo Venture Camera Club competition. My two on-topic (self-portrait) entries didn't fare too well since the judge didn't like the inclusion of the camera in the shot but I swept the off-topic color category. Here are my winning entries:

Leafscape - Second Place

Bored Dog - First Place

Great Purchase

So now that I've taken on photography as a hobby I've found myself spending money on all sorts of things. I love my camera (a Nikon D40), lens (a Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens), Photoshop CS3 (particularly the RAW editor), and my flickr account but I have to say that one of my favorite purchases so far was the Wacom Graphire4 6"x8" tablet!

I have been eyeing the Wacom tablets for quite some time but until getting into photography and having software that would actually benefit from the pen I could never justify the purchase. Now that I have Photoshop justifying the purchase was easy. All I can say now is that I'm glad I bought the tablet and honestly wish I had done so sooner.

Using the pen interface instead of the mouse just feels right. Sure, it took a little getting used to but the adjustment time was minimal. I've only had the tablet for a day and I already find myself using it more effectively than a mouse. Everything just seems easier and more natural with the pen.

I've noticed that I don't just get the benefit from using applications like Photoshop but all applications. Choosing cells in Excel is easier, scrolling web pages or Word documents is easier. Dragging files and folders seems more natural. In general, work just seems easier with the pen.

After having used the pen and tablet interface I'd recommend it to anyone.

I'm Back!

After a long time away I've decided to use Blogger again. I'm in the process of revamping my main site to be focused on my photography and am going to move much of the blog content I had there over to blogger.

Moving forward, I'll use this space to post new technical resources and journal some of my explorations of photography. Hopefully I can get myself to be a little more consistent with posting since I don't have to do anything to maintain this site!

I think it will take a little time to get re-adjusted to using Blogger again. It has been over two years since my last post here. I can't believe I remembered my password!